McManaman duped into winning performance

Wigan's man of the match Callum McManaman was told he would not be playing in Sunday's 4-1 FA Cup fifth-round win at Huddersfield to ensure he got a good night's sleep.

PUBLISHED: 06:40, Mon, Feb 18, 2013

Callum McManaman scored the opener for Wigan [PA]

Latics manager Roberto Martinez, who made six changes for the tie, revealed he only told the 21-year-old he would be in the starting line-up in the morning so he did not spend an anxious night suffering from nerves.

"Callum is such a talented young man, he loves the game and loves playing football and when he started to guess that he was going to be starting he was getting too hyped up," said Martinez, whose side have yet to win in the Barclays Premier League in 2013.

"He would then have a bad night's sleep and we would never be able to get 90 minutes out of him in the previous rounds when he started against Macclesfield and Bournemouth he found it really difficult and I could see yesterday in training he was doing extra work in the gym and I could see he was showing a bit of anxiety.

"So I pulled him over and said I wasn't sure if he was going to start so you can imagine he had a great night's sleep and was a bit angry and this morning when he found out he was playing he was delighted."

McManaman responded with a virtuoso display, clipping home a fine opening goal, laying on the second for Arouna Kone and teeing up James McArthur for a brilliant third. Lee Novak pulled one back for Huddersfield with a 62nd-minute header but Kone smashed home his second in the closing stages.

Huddersfield's new manager Mark Robins, in his first game in charge after being unveiled as the permanent successor to Simon Grayson in midweek, said he had seen glimpses from his new charges to give him optimism, but that he was glad his side would not be facing Wigan every week.

"Our performance was okay, it wasn't anything spectacular," said the former Coventry boss. "They caused us a lot of problems with the movement and their quality, it was tough. It was always going to be a difficult game."

Robins, who must improve on his new side's record of one win in their last 15 league matches if he is to keep them in the npower Championship, added: "Their were some glimpses of some good football and decent movement.

"It's going to take a little bit of time to get the team set up how I'd like it, but there's some good quality in there."